“I've taken down the group,” said Mr. Teesdale, returning with a large photograph in a gilt frame; “and here is the letter on the chimney-piece. We'll have a look at them both again.”
On the chimney-piece also were the old man's spectacles, which he proceeded to put on, and a tobacco jar and long clay pipe, at which he merely looked lovingly; for Mrs. Teesdale would have no smoking in the house. His own chair stood in the cosy corner between the window and the hearth; and he now proceeded to pull it up to his own place at the head of the table as though it were a meal-time, and that gilt-framed photograph the only dish. Certainly he sat down to it with an appetite never felt during the years it had hung in the unused, ornamental next room, without the least prospect of the Teesdales ever more seeing any member of that group in the flesh. But now that such a prospect was directly at hand, there was some sense in studying the old photograph. It was of eight persons: the parents, a grandparent, and five children. Three of the latter were little girls, in white stockings and hideous boots with low heels and elastic sides; and to the youngest of these three, a fair-haired child whose features, like those of the whole family, were screwed up by a strong light and an exposure of the ancient length, Mr. Teesdale pointed with his finger-nail.
“That's the one,” said he. “She now is a young lady of five or six and twenty.”
“Don't think much of her looks,” observed John William.
“Oh, you can't tell what she may be like from this,” Arabella said, justly. “She may be beautiful now; besides, look how the sun must have been in her eyes, poor little thing! What's her name again, father?”
“Miriam, my dear.”
“Miriam! I call it a jolly name, don't you, Jack?”
“It's a beast of a name,” said John William.
“Stop while I read you a bit of the letter,” cried the old man, smiling indulgently. “I won't give you all of it, but just this little bit at the end. He's been telling me that Miriam has her own ideas about things, has already seen something of the world, and isn't perhaps quite like the girls I may remember when we were both young men——”
“Didn't I tell you?” interrupted John William, banging the table with his big fist. “She's stuck-up! We don't want her here.”